Meatspace (18 page)

‘How do you live?’ Hayley asks me just as our food arrives.

‘What do you mean? Like, how do I sleep at night?’

‘How
do
you sleep at night, Kitab Balasubramanyam?’ Hayley laughs. ‘No, I mean, like, we hang out at things and I know I don’t know you well enough to ask this, but if you’re on your publisher with the amount you sold, how do you live? I only ask because I’m about to need to find a job and all the jobs I can find involve writing about handbags or haircuts. What’s your secret?’

‘I’m a rich kid,’ I say, smiling.

‘Oh.’ Hayley looks around the room, disappointed.

‘I mean, like, my mum died when I was young, from cancer. When my book came out, my dad gave me a chunk of my inheritance to keep me going in case the book didn’t set the world alight. The book didn’t set the world alight. So here I am, burning through the money and contemplating jobs writing about top 5 curry spots. Because the book didn’t set the world alight. Whoops.’

‘At least you know where your shit is.’

‘True. But yeah, it’s not like writing’s paying the bills. I might as well write what the people want. News stories about engaging web content or something.’

‘And thus, the rich kid becomes a hack.’

‘I can’t even … I can’t even find a job writing for B2B sites. I got rejected from writing for a tourism site because I seemed “ambivalent”.’

This is the first time I’ve felt honest about anything in months. I feel sweaty.

‘I like your tattoo,’ Hayley says. ‘It’s like the ultimate statement for analogue, for printed books, for objects to touch.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, hollow.

Hayley places her hand on my wrist, where my arm is resting on the table. My mind flashes between her and Kitab 2, finding him and finding her, this girl I’ve liked for a while, showing me the ‘sign’. It’s distracting. Kitab 2 Kitab 2 Kitab 2. But Hayley. But Hayley. But Hayley. I look at her hand on my arm. She has orange nail polish on short cut nails. Like her toes. Instagram has made me obsess over people’s nails. Which reminds me, I forgot to take a photo of my food. Her fingers are long and feminine. Rach had small, stubby digits. We’d never hold hands because my meat fists would feel like they were spreading her fingers too far apart.

‘So, you’re single …’ she says.

‘Yeah.’

‘How’s single life?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t really done much with it, to be honest.’

‘It’s hard to meet people. I mean, how do you set up a dating profile and put your profession as writer? It means people can judge you before they date you.’

‘They can judge you anyway. In Google Search, veritas,’ I say. ‘I set up a dating profile. I didn’t really get any responses so I closed it down.’

Hayley pulls my arm over so my forearm is pointed upward and pulls the sleeve up the tattoo.

‘Everyday I write the book,’ she says. ‘Like Elvis Costello.’

‘Chapter one, we didn’t really get along …’

‘Chapter two … I fell in love with you.’

She laughs, as if that might be a possibility. I laugh back, because to not would be awkward. I’m not good at these situations. I haven’t had to flirt with anyone since before Rach and even then I was never that type of guy. She’s beautiful. I’m out of practice. How do I advance this? It’s impossible. Ghost protocol. Black ops. Call of duty. It’s an impossible mission.

‘I don’t really like Elvis Costello,’ I say, like an automaton, pulling the mood-killer parachute. ‘My mum did. So did Aziz. So does Aziz.’

‘Me neither,’ she replies and smiles. ‘Well, not as much as I’m told I would, given the other bands I like. He sounds so 80s.’

‘I guess that means something to some people.’

‘Not me. But when a band in 20 years’ time reminds me of Nirvana and I tell young pups that, I bet they’ll hate me as much as I hate the nerds who tell me Elvis Costello “is my jam”.’

Our food’s getting cold so I get my head down as I arrange eggs on toast with bacon on top, drizzled with beans, before I get ready to tear it apart and devour it. Hayley takes 3 bites of her bacon butty and puts it down. ‘I’m full,’ she says. Looking up, I see Hayley looking at me like I need to hurry up. Maybe she hates eating. ‘Wanna go for a walk?’

*

We’re walking home and I’m telling Hayley about Aziz and Teddy Baker.

‘So, he’s just packed off to America?’

‘Yeah. He lives dangerously.’

‘What if he gets hurt? What if he meets this guy and he’s such a massive disappointment, he regrets his tattoo?’

‘I don’t think he really thinks like that. He’d be like, “If you’ve lived such a cool-ass life, you don’t give a fuck anymore.” Probably.’

‘He sounds fun.’

‘He is and he isn’t. I mean, he’s obsessed with looking as cool as possible. He has this … this inbuilt necessity to read blogs, tweets, Tumblrs and magazines to find out exactly what’s the next hype. Aziz’s website favourites, his bookmarks and his RSS feeds are filled with images of coats, t-shirts, shoes, bands, comic strips, words of the day and new takes on acronyms so he could imbibe, constantly, absolutely everything, simultaneously. He could be into a band and declare them a sell-out in the same afternoon. He will stop everything to go and hunt the vintage and charity shops around us for a new hat or cut of shirt that harks back to whatever trend is coming back in fashion. Every band he likes is a band you won’t have heard of. On purpose.’

‘That sounds exhausting. I barely have time to keep up with the news.’

‘I dunno. Without him, I wouldn’t like half the stuff I like.’

Hayley grabs my hand as we pass my local pub. Her fingers are cold at the tips and clammy and fat at the base. They feel soft and squidgy, like those bendy rubber separators you use to paint your toenails with.

She aligns her shoulder with mine so we’re arm to arm. Apart from allowing the hand holding to carry on, I am putting nothing into this situation. And yet my body is betraying me because I am hard and I am flush. I can feel the static sting of embarrassed horniness under the melanin in my skin. I can feel her lean into me.

‘How’s the new book coming along?’ she asks me.

‘What new book?’ I ask.

‘“Everyday I write the book” …’

‘Yeah. I dunno. I don’t know what to write. What do you write about once you’ve done your whole coming-of-age tale and life has been plain-sailing since?’

‘You have adventures you want to write about. Or you write something with superheroes and gun battles and gangsters. But in the real world. It could be funny.’

‘Those are my only 2 options?’

‘Yeah. Well, they say your first book is about everyone you’ve met till you write it, and your second is about writers and writing because that’s all you meet afterwards.’

‘I’d rather have a cup of tea.’

‘There’s always the pan-ethnic novel, set in India, with mangrove swamps and arranged marriages.’

‘I’d sell a million.’

‘More frangipani literature, that’s what the world wants.’

‘I hate it.’

‘You hate yourself.’

‘What about you? Surely there are more middle-class marriage structures to exploit?’

‘You mocking me, Balasubramanyam? I’ll have you know my parents’ divorce was very painful to watch …’ Hayley says, poking me in the side. It tickles. Ripples of a long-forgotten sensation spread across me.

‘What’s wrong with writing in some non-white characters once in a while?’

‘You’re cocksure for someone who’s shown everyone their cock.’

‘I didn’t,’ I say, desperate for someone to believe me. I realise I haven’t checked my phone in the last 2 hours, since I’ve been with Hayley. I have no idea what’s happening in the world. And I feel fine about it.

‘I know.’

‘I don’t know how to write non-white characters. Help me. Do ethnics talk funny or different?’

‘They talk like me.’

‘You talk like a white guy.’

‘And just like that … his point was proven.’

We reach the end of my street in an ‘oh, how did we end up here’ way and something comes over me. It’s the potential, the expectation. It’s the knowledge that all roads lead home. It’s the feeling of power. Mostly, it’s because I’ve thought this woman was so beautiful from the moment I saw her, but it’s only now I possess the necessary leverage to pull her towards me. I pull Hayley in tight.

‘That’s my flat,’ I point.

‘Show me,’ she says, with a slow smile.

At my door, I fumble for my keys, drop them to the floor and we both go for them. As we rise from our crouches, her hands find my face and she pulls my jawline towards hers. We kiss. It’s tentative at first. We’re sizing up the contours of each other’s mouths, not wishing to overstep the welcome of each other’s lips. We quickly mould the size of our mouth holes to each other’s and we press in harder. I then slowly slither my tongue into her mouth, but she bats it off with her own. Our tongues tussle. I feel a hard, horny stitch in my stomach. She’s the first person I’ve kissed since Rach. It feels good.

My arms clasp around her back and then move down towards the outward curve of her bottom. It’s like a video I’ve seen. When the guy accosts the girl on the street and convinces her to come home with him. Conveniently, she’s never wearing underwear.

I feel self-conscious about our public display of affection. The whole of my neighbourhood is watching. Metaphorically. Because realistically they’re at work. Or doing some hip installation at an underground art gallery. But that mutual coyness leads us inside where we press against the closing door, followed by a fall onto the sofa. It’s all tongues and wrapping limbs and awkward exploratory hands and lips. I alternate between her mouth and neck with my lips, and her hair and lower back with my hands. Her focus flits between my face, pulling me almost entirely into her mouth, and the greying shorn bristles of the back of my head hair.

I want to live-tweet this moment so badly. Just so I remember it.

‘She kisses me, pulling me almost entirely into her mouth #50shadesofkitab’

It doesn’t feel like the videos I spend days watching. There’s too much kissing. Everything flows from one act to another. We don’t jump-cut from kiss to blowjob to anal to her willing face.

Her mouth feels forceful on mine, leading me. It’s a revolving gif in my head stuttering forward into an awkward loop. I imagine her naked flesh till the pixels blur into the beige blocks of her skin.

We are interrupted by a phone call that vibrates in my pocket, which, even though she insists I answer, I try to ignore it, until 3 successive phone calls remind me of my little online warfare with Kitab 2. So, assuming the persistence can mean it’s only him or about him, I answer the phone. While I talk, Hayley’s hands seek to distract me with gentle strokes in inappropriate places. I bat her off because a very efficient and assertive nurse from a nearby hospital is informing me that I have been noted as the next of kin for a Kitab Balasubramanyam and he has been brought into the hospital as the victim of a brutal beating. I am to come into the hospital and check in on him.

Kitabus interruptus.

I could stay away. He deserves his fate after trying to affect mine. And I hate hospitals. They make me think of sick people. I don’t like sick people. I could be a forgiving Christian and go, forgive him and move on with my life. Or I could choose the heathen’s path – go and confront him, and find a way to fuck with him while he’s whacked on morphine. Maybe that’s the coward’s path. I do dislike confrontation.

I look at Hayley and at her body, pointing everything towards me. She takes my phone out of my hand, places it on the floor and bites the end of my finger. I palm her cheek delicately.

‘That was the hospital,’ I say. ‘Something’s happened.’

‘Everything okay?’ she says, rising up on to her knees to kiss my neck.

‘No, there’s been an accident. I’m so sorry. I want … this …’

‘Yeah, that’s not sexy, dude,’ she says, standing up. ‘Call me when you’re done. Hope it’s nothing too serious … Besides,’ she winks. ‘I’ve got handbags to review.’

As she turns away, I go in for a cuddle. The cuddle trajectory is mistimed and I bat one of her breasts instead. She swings towards me and pushes me on to the sofa.

‘You had me at hello,’ Hayley says, laughing. ‘Why is it so hard to quit you?’

‘Hashtag sorry.’

‘Hashtag call me later.’

‘Hashtag no really, I’m sorry.’

‘Hashtag stop going on about it you foppish doofus and deal with your shit.’

Hayley grabs her coat and bag, doing each action deliberately enough to give me time to intervene, but I feel no imperative to do so.

I’m furious with Kitab 2. He has damaged my public personality on the internet. He has reduced me to a laddish loutish pervert who would do that sort of thing for attention – and there is nothing more precious to preserve than your online persona. Because it’s for ever. I deleted all those sex party tweets I did with Aziz the day after; in the cold light of day, realising what a stupid thing it was to put that on the internet. People misread things like that, think they know you. So many people think they have an informal relationship with you, that they can react to your news in the same way as a friend. I used to have a guy comment on my Facebook every time Cara (she of the Skype dinners) and I talked about anything. He would invariably butt in and try to impress her.

E.g.:

Me to Cara: Dinner soon?

Cara to me: Yeah – deffo. lol. aint seen u in ages. Skype?

Me to Cara: NO Real life > Skype.

Cara to me: Fine. When?

Me to Cara: Cool – free next Tuesday. Wanna grab some Thai food in town?

Random man: Dudes, if you’re looking for Thai, go to the Sai Thai restaurant. It’s dope. I know the owner. Say you’re my cousin and he’ll give you free drinks. Swear down.

Eventually, I asked this guy why he only ever spoke to me when I was conversing with Cara (he was a guy I went to school with years ago who had added me, and out of a perverse sense of nosiness, I accepted so I could see what his life became). He replied:
‘
Cos ur m8 is BUFF! m8. shes well fit. she got a boyf?’

Language is dead, I thought. I told him that it was weird he was chirpsing my friend but made no effort to ever talk to me. How did he know she wasn’t my girlfriend, I asked?